Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

Married cancer patients fare better: Can you put that in a pill?

Married people who are diagnosed with the most common types of cancer are 20 percent less likely to die than patients who are single – and depending on the type of cancer they have, their odds of dying may be reduced by as much as 33 percent, new research shows.

That finding raises an intriguing question: Is it possible to identify the specific benefits of marriage and put them into a hypothetical “pill” that could give the same benefits to patients who are single?

It may sound far-fetched, but that’s at least part of the motivation behind the new study, published online this week by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The researchers noted that the National Cancer Institute and the rest of the National Institutes of Health spend about $5 billion each year to understand the molecular basis of cancer and to develop biological treatments. But medicine is only part of the story – social support can matter just as much when it comes to long-term survival, and only 51 percent of American adults are married, they wrote.

So the team, led by doctors from hospitals and research programs affiliated with Harvard Medical School, examined the medical records of 734,889 patients, from across the country, who were diagnosed with cancer between 2004 and 2008. Instead of focusing on a single type of cancer the team included patients with the 10 types of cancer that cause the most deaths: lung, colorectal, breast, pancreatic, prostate, liver, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, head/neck, ovarian and esophageal cancer.

Marriage seems to benefit patients at all stages of illness, the researchers found. People with spouses were 17 percent less likely to be diagnosed with an advanced cancer that has already spread to another organ. For prostate cancer, the risk of being diagnosed with metastatic cancer was 48 percent lower for patients who were married; for breast cancer, the risk was 40 percent lower.

In addition, married patients whose cancer hadn’t spread were 53 percent more likely than their single counterparts to opt for a “definitive” treatment, including surgery and radiation (the medical records did not include information about chemotherapy treatments). The researchers speculate that patients who were married were more likely to stick to their treatment than patients who didn’t have that spousal support.

After controlling for demographic factors, as well as the severity of the cancer and the treatment plan followed, the researchers found that married patients were less likely to die of all 10 types of cancer analyzed.

These benefits were not trivial. For patients with head and neck cancer, being married reduced the risk of death by 33 percent – much more than the 13 percent reduced risk of death shown in previous studies to be offered by chemotherapy. Marriage was more helpful than chemotherapy for breast, prostate, colorectal and esophageal cancer as well.

This study couldn’t answer the question of why marriage seemed to help cancer patients, but the researchers offered some theories. Spouses probably pushed patients to get to the doctor sooner and they probably encourage patients to get – and stick with – more aggressive treatment.

Though a cancer diagnosis would be upsetting to anyone, previous studies have found that married patients are less distressed, less anxious and less likely to be depressed than patients who are single. They also have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol – and that puts their immune systems in a better position to fight tumors.

How can single people get the social benefits of marriage without being married? That’s the key question that should be answered in future studies, the researchers wrote.

It should be possible to close that gap, David Kissane of Monash University wrote in an editorial that accompanies the study. He cited studies showing that people who are part of a “close and cohesive family” are 1.7 times more likely to stick with their cancer treatment and that people who get “practical support” are 3.6 times more likely to persevere.

Perhaps single patients should be screened for depression at the time of diagnosis, so they can be treated if necessary, Kissane wrote.

Entertainment Videos

Join the Discussion

The Wichita Eagle is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.